Today I went to the lfs and got me some seahem flourish for my plants. I've been doing some reading on it and thought it was safe for invertebrates. I have a 29gal tank so as per directions on bottle I added just under 2.5ml. Within 5 minutes my singapore shrimp started going crazy and trying to swim to the top, which he has never tried to do before. So the only thing I could think is that the flourish was to much for it. I decided to do a quick water change to see if I could help my shrimp out. I changed 5 gal real quick and had to go run errands. I came back a couple hours later and my singapore shrimp and 2 of my 3 algae eating shrimp had died. Has anyone else ran into this problem. All the shrimp in my tank were doing good for over a month and then today after the flourish they died in just a couple hours. I guess I just wanted to type this up so I could rant a bit, thanks for listening.

Adam

naich

02-06-2012 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arscott82
(Post 975254)

Today I went to the lfs and got me some seahem flourish for my plants. I've been doing some reading on it and thought it was safe for invertebrates. I have a 29gal tank so as per directions on bottle I added just under 2.5ml. Within 5 minutes my singapore shrimp started going crazy and trying to swim to the top, which he has never tried to do before. So the only thing I could think is that the flourish was to much for it. I decided to do a quick water change to see if I could help my shrimp out. I changed 5 gal real quick and had to go run errands. I came back a couple hours later and my singapore shrimp and 2 of my 3 algae eating shrimp had died. Has anyone else ran into this problem. All the shrimp in my tank were doing good for over a month and then today after the flourish they died in just a couple hours. I guess I just wanted to type this up so I could rant a bit, thanks for listening.

Adam

interesting. i over dosed 10fold on that product by accident in my 36 gallon with red cherries and amonao and they all lived through the night until i did a 90 percent water change, all my cory cats died though...perhaps that shrimp species was too sensitive, check you nitrite levels.

arscott82

02-06-2012 07:54 PM

Nitrite levels a zero.

Geomancer

02-06-2012 08:19 PM

I haven't heard of it, but it does contain stuff like copper that inverts don't tolerate well. I use flourish and have ghost shrimp, they're still alive (well, at least 3 of them that I can find at any given time).

Boredomb

02-06-2012 10:50 PM

I have 2 Bamboo shrimp and dose this 2x week. Have even dose right above them. Never had an issue with it. You sure it was the flourish comprehensive that killed your shrimp?

Byron

02-07-2012 01:00 PM

I would check other possible issues too. Seachem have said in response to direct questions that their products are safe for fish and in=vertebrates if not overdosed.

And plants can take up copper as a toxin even beyond what they assimilate as a necessary nutrient, so it would require a fair bit i would think before it would harm organisms.

Another thought occurs to me, there is copper in most water supplies, and it can leech into the water if you have copper pipes, esp if newer. You might want to explore this too, as the already high level of copper (if it is) plus the Flourish might have done something. You can find out about copper in the water from the water supply people, and obviously you will know about your own water pipes. If you see a blue stain in a bathtub below the faucet, that is copper.

Also check the GH and pH, these can vary and cause issues.

Byron.

arscott82

02-07-2012 02:50 PM

My ph has been steady at 7.6. I check it every week before I do a water change. As for gh, I've never checked that, but back to my water changes. Every sunday I take out 5 gal and put 3 gal of R/O and 2 gal tap. Hopefully that is good enouph for the fish in there. Someone tried telling me that I shouldn't ever use api product with a seachem product. If that is the case, yesterday when this all happened, I added my api co2 booster just a couple minutes before the flourish.
I don't think it could've been anything else. Like I said everything has been doing great for a while now. It was just like 5 min after I added the flourish they started going nuts. I'm not saying that it 100% killed them, just saying that as of now it is my prime suspect.

arscott82

02-07-2012 03:34 PM

I just read your conversation with hywaydave about his swords. I think I might just go with the in gravel tabs vs. the liquid form. From what I just read it seams safer, being that the nutrients stay in the substrate. Plus it something that I just have to deal with every couple months vs. once or twice a week. The only thing is that I'm trying to get a carpet of dwarf baby tears going. How would I be able to use the tabs after, hopefully they'll grow well, they start to spread out and carpet my substrate?

Byron

02-07-2012 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arscott82
(Post 976010)

My ph has been steady at 7.6. I check it every week before I do a water change. As for gh, I've never checked that, but back to my water changes. Every sunday I take out 5 gal and put 3 gal of R/O and 2 gal tap. Hopefully that is good enouph for the fish in there. Someone tried telling me that I shouldn't ever use api product with a seachem product. If that is the case, yesterday when this all happened, I added my api co2 booster just a couple minutes before the flourish.
I don't think it could've been anything else. Like I said everything has been doing great for a while now. It was just like 5 min after I added the flourish they started going nuts. I'm not saying that it 100% killed them, just saying that as of now it is my prime suspect.

I've no knowledge on the API/Seachem issue, but in general one must be very careful mixing different chemical compounds to a fish tank. They can easily interact to the detriment of the fish (or shrimp here). This is well documented with some disease treatment products for instance.

Have you used either product prevously with no issues? It could be the CO2 booster, it is chemical and while I've no idea what is in it I do know that the stuff in Seachem's Excel (their liquid carbon supplement) will melt some plants and can kill fish if overdosed; another member mentioned that it irritated his skin. This tells me the chemicals are strong, stronger than what I would want to put in my tanks. One reason I do not use CO2 products at all.

Byron.

Byron

02-07-2012 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arscott82
(Post 976058)

I just read your conversation with hywaydave about his swords. I think I might just go with the in gravel tabs vs. the liquid form. From what I just read it seams safer, being that the nutrients stay in the substrate. Plus it something that I just have to deal with every couple months vs. once or twice a week. The only thing is that I'm trying to get a carpet of dwarf baby tears going. How would I be able to use the tabs after, hopefully they'll grow well, they start to spread out and carpet my substrate?

If, and I repeat if, one needs to add any sort of plant nutrient supplement to an aquarium, the liquid form is probably the best for the job. This is because all plants assimilate all nutrients via their roots and/or leaves, and these must come from the water. Nutrients added to the substrate in any form will dissolve in the water before the plants can take them up. Targetting single large plants with tabs works; spreading this out over the entire tank is supposed to be possible [Seachem suggest a tab every few inches or something] but I've never tried it. I have plants that derive no benefit from substrate nutrients so I still have to use liquid, and except for the larger swords, this works the best.

As you may have had a problem with a Seachem product, why not contact them directly? They have scientists on staff who can respond to your questions. I would, if I thought this occurred.